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The Snowed-Ins of Yesteryear

Ah, I remember the days when there was nothing better than 24 straight hours of snow, a lovely blanket of cold white stuff all over the neighborhood promising that schools would not be open for at least the next day or two. And snow pants/snow suits. If only I still had one of those lying around. Those were the days!

Now that kind of thing just sucks. Why? Because I’m a runner. But I’m not a runner who has these things. I would invest, but here in New York, the problem isn’t so much that the sidewalks and/or roads aren’t clear, it’s more that at every street corner, you have to wade through an ocean of slush in order to cross. I don’t think Yaktrax can help me with that. I’d need waders.

But anyway, as a result of the too-much snow we got here yesterday, last night, and most of today, I’m pretty much house-bound. I could have gone to the gym but the thought of schlepping there was unappealing so I decided I’d just sit at home and whine to myself about how crappy it feels to be inactive. Because man! does it feel really, really crappy. Luckily, with a four-mile run tomorrow and the four-mile race on Sunday, I’ll still make my target 20 miles for the week, so my balanced mileage won’t be affected. Hopefully, anyway.

Unfortunately, mental balance has been tough this week, in spite of the fact that I think the week started off on a positive note. I’ve caught myself doing a lot of negative self-talk, and have been generally frustrated with myself overall for not working out more. It’s hard to tell at times like these if maybe 20 miles is too conservative a goal. I felt good when I was doing 30 mile weeks, so maybe I should raise my target a little bit. Maybe I’ll feel better in the long run. I’m not sure. Has anyone else struggled with this sort of thing? I just don’t like the feeling of not running. The feeling itself makes me feel unbalanced. I guess I have a hard time knowing what’s right for my body at this point. I’d love to hear any feedback from people on how they deal with this sort of thing.

I also have to keep reminding myself that I didn’t actually meet all my goals, since I haven’t gotten to the gym at all and, therefore, haven’t done any cross-training or weights. Well, there’s always next week. As well as tomorrow, or Sunday. So I’ll at least be able to get one day of weight training under my belt, which is better than nothing.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to my race on Sunday. This will be the first race I’ve run in a while, and the first of 9 qualifying races that I’ll do this year for automatic entry into the 2011 (Insert Sponsor Name Here) NYC marathon. Last time I raced a four-miler was in 2007, and I finished in a 34:01, which, when I looked it up today, kind of blew me away. That’s an average pace of 8:30, which I think I should be able to do on Sunday although I’ll be honest, I really have no idea. I really need to start paying more attention to pace–5k pace, 10k pace, half-marathon pace, marathon pace, etc. If anyone has any good suggestions on where to get more information on that sort of thing, I’m all ears. And not normal, human ears, but big Mickey Mouse ears, because this day needs a bit of whimsy.

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2 comments

All days need a bit of whimsy, and maybe more than a bit. As for feeling bad about weekly goals, maybe it would help if you were trying to adhere to a specific training schedule like those suggested at the NY Marathon website. That way it’s their goal, not yours.

But I know what you feel about the not running. I haven’t been running in a while and it makes me feel terrible about myself. I know that once I start running I’ll feel great, but getting out and taking that first step is so hard.